Helper Checkmate! | Double Team Endgame | ChessKid

By now, you know what checkmate is. Today, we're going to start our discussion of how to make a checkmate. That's when it gets more exciting. We know what a cake is, but imagine being able to make a cake whenever you want it. Okay, in chess, you often need your pieces working together to make your cake. Whoops, I mean make your checkmate. In this chess position, if the queen tries to checkmate all by herself, without any helpers, it's unlikely she's going to succeed. It's much like life. If you don't have any friends to help you along the way, it's not going to be a very interesting life. Let's see what happens if the queen tries to go it alone and capture this pawn in front of the black king. Well, we know he's in danger. He is definitely in check. He has to capture, protect, or run away. Here, he only has one option. He's going to save himself by capturing. And, there goes our queen. Even though we've not talked about the values of the pieces yet, I bet you can figure out that the queen is much more important than the pawn. Let's back up and see what happens if white has a friend to help the queen. Let's move this bishop backward to the square c3. Is the bishop aiming at the same point that the queen was aiming at? Yes, it sure is. The queen now has a helper. And, that's the whole topic of what we're looking at today. Having the queen have a helper makes her so much more powerful. If black doesn't realize what's going on, let's just say he moves his rook over. Notice that's not a check because white's pawn saves his king. What white can do now is capture this pawn on g7. Now, I know you might be afraid to capture with the queen. You might think that capturing with the bishop is a good idea. By the way, this is not stalemate. I know black's king can't move anywhere but his rook or his pawns can all move. So, as a review, that is not a stalemate. However, a better move than capturing with the bishop is actually to capture with the queen. Uh-oh, now black's in big trouble. He's definitely in danger. He can't move to either side because the queen would still be putting him in danger. And, the difference here is he can't capture because if he tries to see, the computer won't even let me the bishop would still be throwing the dodgeball at the king. So, in this chess position, I don't see a way to do c, p, or r. It's checkmate. This is the most common type of checkmate in chess. So, chess kids, stare at the screen until you burn this into your brains. It is a super important pattern that you need to know. Queen and helper checkmate. By the way, the helper does not have to be the bishop. Let's magically add a new chess piece to the board. Maybe we'll add a knight. Okay, if it was white's turn in this position, how could the knight aim at the super important square g7? If you saw knight f5, you've become a knight master. And again, if black does not realize what's going on and plays that exact same move as before, then our queen can come all the way up and capture. This time, it's still checkmate but the helper is the knight. If we go back, we can even make a rook a helper. Let's put a white rook on the square h1. Notice the white rook is on the h file. The white queen is on the g file. If we put them both on the same file, they'll be working really well together. Let's slide this rook over to g1. Again, we're going to pretend black has never seen this before. Our queen can travel all the way up and by now you're realizing any piece can be a helper to the queen. The bishop, the knight, the rook. You may be thinking, what about the pawn? Could a pawn be a helper? Yeah, it sure could. Let's put the pawn over here on f5. If it's white's move, white can advance the pawn. Now it looks like black can take but remember I told you, you're never allowed to put your own king in danger and that would be opening up the path for white's queen. So if black tries to play pawn takes pawn, you'd have to tell him to make a new move. Of course, if you're playing on chess kid, our computer wouldn't even allow this move. After we push the pawn, if black, let's say, slides the rook over, our favorite bad move of the day, right? The queen can travel all the way up and capture. Again, the king is not able to capture. This time, a pawn is the helper. Even the little pawn can be the hero of the day, a good lesson for life. Let's review what we learned today. You usually cannot checkmate with one piece acting on his or her own. You need a friend, you need a helper. Life's more interesting that way. Almost any piece can be the helper for the queen. We've looked at knight, bishop, pawn, rook, and in previous videos it was actually the king that was the helper. Just make sure she's got somebody looking after her safety and on the next turn, the queen can combine with the helper and create a checkmate.